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Review: Robot Unicorn Attack

The Internet’s given us a great many things, including a boatload of Flash games with which to waste our time. Last year, when there seemed to be a bit of a lull with them in favour of Facebook games like Farmville, one glorious product emerged: Robot Unicorn Attack. This game took the Internet by storm, and introduced a whole new generation of gamers to the wonders of 80’s synthpop and its infinite trippiness.

What started off as a Flash game on Adult Swim’s site migrated to the infinitely more profitable markets of Facebook, iOS and now Android. Robot Unicorn Attack comes in at a cool 99 cents (I’m assuming, as it shows as $0.94 due to Canadian price adjustment) and, from what I can tell, it worth just about that. Just-less-than-a-buck seems to be the magic price for a lot of apps, as its not so much that it provokes a huge decision, but not so little to not make any cash.

The game is essentially simple; it’s got a button to jump and a button to dash. Your job is to get as many points as possible in three lives. Throughout the entirety of the app, you’re treated to “Always” by Erasure: YouTube it. You won’t be disappointed.

With such a simple premise it’s hard to review; I mean, the app does its job and replicated the experience on the Android platform well. However, the only complaint is that until the game starts up, I get the black bars (pictured above) on my Atrix; I’m not sure if this is a resolution problem or if it shows up on other phones. You guys will have to help me out in the comments.

The game offers two control schemes: one with on-screen buttons and one based on gestures. The gesture controls, while a bit interesting, don’t necessarily allow for accurate play at the game gets faster and faster. I’d recommend sticking to the button controls unless you want a challenge after the ticker rolls past 10,000 points.

Feint integration, which I’m usually not a fan of, adds some much-needed replayability to a game with such a simplistic concept. I don’t have many friends on it (feel free to add MattDemers), but score competition could definitely keep this game from getting stale.